Fatal crash underscores dangers of teen driving

David Sabet of San Clemente lost his daughter Gillian Sabet in a car crash in 2005. Gillian Sabet was on her way to a summer dance. The driver reached for a pack of gum. Today Sabet and his wife Donna run JourneySafe, a nonprofit that educates teens and parents on better driving safety and calls for more restrictions in teen driving privileges. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Johnathan Grimm wakes every morning to the pain of a bad decision. He was 18 when he got behind the wheel of his Honda Accord staggering drunk, and the only flicker of luck he had that night was that he didn't kill himself or someone else.

He doesn't remember missing a turn in the road, or the end-over-end crash into a drainage ditch that broke three vertebrae in his back, bruised his heart and punctured his lung. He does remember lying in a hospital bed, unable to move his fingers, and how hard it was to learn how to walk again.

Teenagers dominate the statistics for death and destruction on the road. Nothing kills more teens in the United States than motor-vehicle crashes, federal statistics show; seven die, on average, every day. Crash investigators and driving instructors alike say that what gets teens into trouble behind the wheel is their inexperience, their inattention and their appetite for risk.

All three appear to have come together this week in a Newport Beach crash that ripped a car in half and killed the five high-school students inside. The 17-year-old driver didn't even have a starter's permit to drive, much less a license. City officials said early estimates suggest he was speeding at 100 mph or more in a car full of his friends.

"It's really not worth it," said Grimm, now 24, a graphic designer living in Costa Mesa who still needs a daily dose of painkillers for his back. "I think back, if I would've not left the house that night..." He pauses. "It's just not worth it."

In Orange County, more than 10 percent of the at-fault drivers in crashes that caused injury or death in 2011 were teenagers, most recent statistics from the California Highway Patrol show. Those teen drivers accounted for nearly 1,300 such crashes, a number that has been falling in recent years but is still higher than those for other age groups, especially given the relatively small number of licensed teen drivers. Statewide, teenagers account for 3.6 percent of licensed drivers, DMV statistics show.

Insurance skyrockets

Teenagers are considered enough of a risk that most major rental-car agencies won't even give them the keys. And a two-car family that wants to add a teen driver to its auto-insurance policy can expect a 58 percent hike in rates, on average, according to a 2010 study by Insurance.com.

"It's just their inexperience," said Andrew Wunderlich, a retired Los Angeles police officer who founded an Orange County driver's-education program called Teen Road to Safety. "It's like anything else in life. They don't know how to do it."

They're still learning, for example, what 55 mph feels like – and how lightly the gas pedal can be pressed to maintain that, instructors said. They don't know what it's like to have traffic slam to a stop right in front of them; many panic and jerk the wheel too hard. They don't think to look over their shoulder before they change lanes.

California requires young drivers to put in six hours of behind-the-wheel training and 50 hours of supervised driving practice to get a provisional license – a requirement that several instructors said was half what parents should demand. Teenagers here can get their instructional permit at 15ÃÂ½ and a provisional license at 16, with prohibitions for 12 months on driving at night and carrying young passengers.

Crash rates fall

California in 1998 became one of the first states in the nation to adopt such a phased-in approach. In the years that followed, the crash rates for 16-year-old drivers fell by 23 percent in California, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Nationwide, the number of 16- and 17-year-old drivers killed in traffic wrecks fell by almost half between 2007 and 2010 as other states enacted similar phased-in licenses, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. But the number rose in 2011 and continued rising into 2012, the association reported.

It concluded that states should further slow the process for granting teens their licenses – raising the minimum age for a permit to 16, for example. Driving instructors and others who work with young drivers said parents also need to stay involved – and should consider the provisional license the start of their child's on-the-road education, not the end.

David Sabet of San Clemente lost his daughter Gillian Sabet in a car crash in 2005. Gillian Sabet was on her way to a summer dance. The driver reached for a pack of gum. Today Sabet and his wife Donna run JourneySafe, a nonprofit that educates teens and parents on better driving safety and calls for more restrictions in teen driving privileges. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
David Sabet of San Clemente lost his daughter Gillian Sabet in a car crash in 2005. Gillian Sabet was on her way to a summer dance. The driver reached for a pack of gum. Today Sabet and his wife Donna run JourneySafe, a nonprofit that educates teens and parents on better driving safety and calls for more restrictions in teen driving privileges. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A computer shows the JourneySafe website as a photo of Gillian Sabet sits in the background. David Sabet, of San Clemente, lost his daughter Gillian Sabet in a car crash in 2005. Gillian Sabet was on her way to a summer dance. The driver reached for a pack of gum. Today Sabet and his wife Donna run JourneySafe, a nonprofit that educates teens and parents on better driving safety and calls for more restrictions in teen driving privileges. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Gillian Sabet and Jonathan Schulte were killed and four injured on the way to a prom when the driver lost control and flipped her SUV on the northbound 73 toll road at the Newport Coast exit on May 26, 2005. MARK AVERY, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Johnathan Grimm, 24, of Costa Mesa, was in a single-vehicle crash in Hesperia when he was 18, after he left a friend's house drunk and missed a turn on the way home. He broke three vertebrae in his back, punctured a lung, bruised his heart, and now lives in pain every day. The photograph at right is of his car after the crash. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Johnathan Grimm, 24, of Costa Mesa, was in a single-vehicle crash in Hesperia when he was 18, after he left a friend's house drunk and missed a turn on the way home. He broke three vertebrae in his back, punctured a lung, bruised his heart, and now lives in pain every day. The photograph at right is of his car after the crash. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Johnathan Grimm, 24, of Costa Mesa, was in a single-vehicle crash in Hesperia when he was 18, after he left a friend's house drunk and missed a turn on the way home. He broke three vertebrae in his back, punctured a lung, bruised his heart, and now lives in pain every day. The photograph he is holding is of his car after the crash. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Johnathan Grimm, 24, of Costa Mesa, was in a single-vehicle crash in Hesperia when he was 18, after he left a friend's house drunk and missed a turn on the way home. He broke three vertebrae in his back, punctured a lung, bruised his heart, and now lives in pain every day. The photograph he is holding is of his car after the crash. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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